Emma Darcy: A Marriage Betrayed

Why did they all think she was someone else?

Why?

Kristy marched into the marble bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror there. It was a most uncomfortable feeling to think there was someone else who looked exactly like her. Was there such a thing as a perfect double? She had heard of movie stars who had look-alike stand-ins, but they weren’t perfect doubles. Surely a man who had been her double’s lover would see some differences if there were any, even though it had been two years since he had been with her. A close resemblance might fool hotel staff, but a lover of intimate acquaintance?

Kristy stared at her reflection in bitter frustration.

Who are you there on the other side of the mirror?

Why did you walk out on him without a word?

I would not have done that.

I’m different from you. I’d never do such a heartless thing to someone who loved me. Or was it wounded pride on his part, losing a possession he’d believed was his. Either way, you must have been a callous creature to dump him like that. But why can’t he see I’m different?

Her hand lifted to trace her features. Was every line exactly the same? The shape of her face, her mouth, her nose, her eyes? And what about colouring? Were her eyes exactly the same clear blue? The blue of cornflowers? Was her hair precisely the same unusual shade of apricot gold? How could it be so? Surely it was impossible. Yet...how else could he make such a mistake?

Kristy shook her head in pained bewilderment. The whole thing was a nightmare. She wrenched her gaze off her reflection in the mirror and left the bathroom. She paused in the dressing-room, eyeing her canvas carryall.

She should pick it up and get out of here. It was the sensible thing to do. Get out of this suite, out of this hotel, right out of this nightmarish situation. Then she would be just herself again, on her way to Geneva, precisely as she had planned before letting herself be sidetracked by a sentimental impulse.

On her way to Geneva . . .

Kristy’s heart stopped dead as her mind performed a double loop. Her mission was to search the Red Cross records for some trace of the family she had lost twenty-five years ago. What if she hadn’t been the only survivor of the earthquake? What if she had a sister—an identical twin sister!—who’d also survived? Or who hadn’t even been in the same place at the same time?

Family—real family!

Her stilled heart burst into rapid pumping.

The answers she wanted might be right here. With the man in the suite next door. Having a twin made more sense out of everyone’s conviction she was someone else. If it was true.

Her mind whirled, struck by the set of eene coincidences... the man who knew staying in this hotel, being actually in the lobby when she had entered for the first and probably the last time in her life... Betty and John bringing her here after their deaths...an impulse... guided by feelings for the very people who might have inadvertently separated her from a twin sister.

Kristy rubbed at her forehead. It ached, as did her heart, carrying the burden of too many thoughts and too many feelings. There was only one way to sort them out. She had to talk to the man again, whether he wanted it or not. Besides, he probably needed a resolution as much as she did.

Too agitated to wait for a longer cooling-off period for him, Kristy headed for the dangerous door again. Nothing was going to put her off her purpose this time, not insults, not threats, not even physical abuse, though she didn’t believe he’d try that again.

She knocked to give him warning, then twisted the key in the lock and thrust the door open. “Monsieur . . .” she called commandingly, determined not to be deterred from asking the questions that had to be asked and answered.

No reply.

She stepped into his sitting room and called again, shooting her gaze around as much as she could see of his suite. It appeared as empty as when she’d first entered and there was no response to her call. She waited, riven by dreadful tension. Perhaps he was in the bathroom. She listened hard. No sound. There was an empty feel to the place, not even a remote sense of his strong presence.

Kristy stood blankly for several minutes, robbed of her purpose and at a total loss what to do next. He wasn’t here. She didn’t know his name. The hotel management was so hung up on discretion, it was most unlikely they’d just give it to her. Apart from which, since the mix-up was still in force, they’d probably think such an inquiry was another little joke on her part.

Her best course, she finally decided, was to wait a few hours and see if he came back. It was midafternoon now. If he was occupying this suite, he’d probably return to it to change for dinner. On the other hand, he might have washed his hands of her and gone off with the beautiful brunette.

It was a depressing thought.

Kristy brooded over the strong pull he’d had on her, then sternly told herself he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the twin of a woman who’d dumped him. Maybe they shared the same chemistry. That would help to explain the extraordinary feelings he stirred in her.

Despondently she returned to her suite, relocking the connecting door. She needed his name, but that could wait, too. If she failed to make any further contact with him today, she would tackle the hotel management tomorrow morning, argue her case, and demand co-operation. No way would she countenance losing this link to a possible sister.

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